This is a slice of my philosophical, lay scientific, musical, religious skepticism, and poetic musings. (All poems are my own.)
The science and philosophy side meet in my study of cognitive philosophy; Dan Dennett was the first serious influence on me, but I've moved beyond him.
The poems are somewhat related, as many are on philosophical or psychological themes. That includes existentialism and questions of selfhood, death, and more. Nature and other poems will also show up here on occasion.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

The four strands? Competitiveness in general, capitalism,
Pop Evolutionary Psychology and social Darwinism.

Regular readers know that I’ve recently written about No. 4,
including listing one candidate most wouldn’t put there. I’ve regularly written
about Pop Ev Psych and its largely unscientific, occasionally pseudoscientific
claims; I’ve been wary of it even when less liberal than I am now, so this is
not driven by political issues.

I am that liberal, though … left-liberal of a sort for
America, at least. So, in various ways, I’ve definitely written about No. 2,
capitalism?

No. 1, competitiveness, somewhat ties all the others
together.

Evolution by natural selection does involve a degree of
competitiveness, to be sure. However, that competitiveness is usually against
members of other species, more than members of one’s own species. To the degree
there is intraspecific competition, it’s often sexual selection that’s the
driver. That said, at the same time, group selection can be a driver for
collaboration with other members of the same species.

So, that’s biology. Pop Ev Psych is sociology, primarily in
what it says about its adherents. Ditto for social Darwinism (the fourth modern
variety of social Darwinism, New Atheism, has many libertarian adherents, and
yes, adherents is the right word). Capitalism is obviously a matter of
economics.

Philosophy? Trying to extrapolate from the biological basis
of and need for competitiveness to the other three gets us to Davie Hume’s
famous is-ought distinction. (It’s worth noting that, in my opinion, many
people who claim that Hume’s comments on this are misconstrued, misinterpreted,
wrongly implied, etc., have personal reasons for stating this; see ox, whose
and goring.)

Just because we have to fight to escape a lion (or per the
old joke, run faster than a companion also seeking to escape it) doesn’t mean
that Wall Street plutocracy, Pop Ev Psych “just so” stories and the beliefs
behind them, or the social Darwinism of either New Atheism or old-time religion
has to be that way.

Because it doesn’t.

And, this is part of why the American education system is
problematic, and not just K-12 education.

I don’t think I am overstating matters when I
say 90 percent of Americans are unfamiliar with Hume’s is-ought distinction.
And that’s sad. Hume is one of the most “approachable,” largely non-technical,
philosophers in modern, or even modern plus ancient, philosophical history.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

It's long been established that we have what could be called
"subconscious attentiveness," which can cause things such as certain
types of psychological priming through images being presented to people,
but too quickly for them to be consciously aware of the images.

Friday, February 17, 2012

This book is OK overall, no more, and IS deserving of the criticism
Greenblatt has gotten, for overstating his case and
more.

Greenblatt's good part is explaining how
Poggio came across the book, his general hunting for books, what it was
like to be an early Renaissance non-clerical humanist and similar
things.

The not so good is overstating his case,
and getting some things wrong, incomplete or
unexplained.

First, the inventors of atomic theory,
Democritus and Leucippus were pre-Epicurean and even pre-Socratic.
Greenblatt never mentions this. Nor does he mention that Greek
philosophers in general were anti-empirical, and therefore
antiscientific, as we know science today. (Indeed, one could argue that
Archimedes and Eratosthenes were the only two real scientists the
Hellenistic world produced.)

Ergo, especially if we
start "modernity" with the Enlightenment and not the Renaissance,
Epicureanism was not "how the world became modern." Not even
close.

Second, he cherry-picks who was influenced
by Lucretius, and how much, and how much influence they had. The late
Renaissance world didn't see a flowering of Giordano
Brunos.

In this way, the book reminds me of a Ph.D.
these written by either an English lit or a psychology grad student,
trying to find something semi-outrageous to "break through."

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

That's been known to be true for some time. Depending on when the
single fertilized egg divided, identical twins can have separarate
amniotic sacs, umbilical cords and placentas, the same sac, the same
cord as well, or even the same placenta.

And now, we're learning that identical twins may not have entirely the same genetic makeup, not even in brain cells. As a result, twin studies for illnesses, behavior, etc., may
be called into a bit of question, and future twin studies more
carefully controlled for subjects.

At the same time, the authors
occasionally slip into quasi-teleological language while wondering why
evolution "allows" this. Their proposed answer as to why this may happen
is interesting, but could serve to have that language nuanced better.
Also, even if you allow for the teleological/personifying language, that
may not be the reason why this happens; maybe epigenetic events are at
least partially involved, even with identicals. After all, they don't
share 100 percent the same environment.

And, it may turn out that on a statistical average, such
transposition isn't favorable or unfavorable, and that we're talking
about a ramped-up genetic drift. Or maybe more modest transposition was
more favorable, and now, the degree of favorability has lessened. From
what little I know, genetic studies like this are kind of like studying
individual frames, or at best, snippets, from a movie, when the backdrop
for the movie may have been radically different at another point.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

I think Chris Mooney has had some good research on statistical
information about psychological differences, on average, between liberal
and conservative thought processes, etc. But, I'd agree with both Massimo Pigliucci and even Jerry Coyne that, basically, Mooney is making a couple of mistakes as he goes further down this road.

The first is that he's committing Science Error 101: Conflating statistical and causal correlation.

The second is that he's leaning too hard on the "nature" side of
nature vs. nurture, including not noting that, to the degree some of
these psychological differences evolved, they did long, long before
Aristotle said man was an animal of society, let alone one who formed
political parties and alliances.

Lesser critiques are that
he's relying on thin reeds of single studies, and that he presents
stuff, then won't defend it, claiming he just threw it out there.
Another thicker reed is that Mooney may be getting too wrapped up in the
agenda of a liberal think tank -- in other words, he's "pulling a Chris Mooney," engaged in the same time of motivated reasoning he's pointed out in other individuals and groups; stay tuned on this one.

But, that's nothing compared to Mooney saying this:

I’ve been in vigorous debates with the “New Atheists” in the past; but frankly, researching The Republican Brain pushed
me a lot further towards their camp than I had been before. They’re
upset with religion; I’m highly critical of psychological conservatism;
and there turn out to be big overlaps between the two. Indeed,
conservative religiosity also appears to have a genetic component to it. Liberal religiosity strikes me as also being psychologically
liberal, and therefore quite a different beast; but conservative or
authoritarian religion reflects much of the rigidity (and denial of
reality) of psychological conservatism.

In other words, I’d be surprised if the New Atheists–especially folks like Sam Harris, who have tried to figure out the neuroscience of the religious mind–weren’t in agreement on this one. More soon.

Good fucking doorknob.

Fiorst, Harris' "research" has largely pushed the envelope of
"scientism," as Massimo, for one, and me for another, both well know.

Second, many Gnus don't regularly distinguish between more
liberal and more conservative versions of religion. (Example A: P.Z.
Myers' twisting poll results to claim atheist were more sexually
liberated from guilt than anybody, when Unitarians and Reform Jews
actually topped them.)

Third, Gnus in general have never cracked a page of a book on psychology or sociology of religion. Ergo ...

Fourth, re religion and genetic influences, they make the same
types of mistakes as Chris appears to be making on Point No. 2 above the
pull quote.

First, passive-aggressiveness isn't necessarily a bad thing. Often,
it's the personal relationship psychology equivalent of asymmetric
warfare. People lower on a power scale fight with the weapons they have.

No, passive-aggressiveness isn't good in a more equal
relationship, like an intimate one. And counselors are right to point
that out. But, something like an employee vs. employer situation,
especially if the employer is putting the energy in the "versus"?

And, isn't it passive-aggressive of an employer to berate an
employee for not being able to do something that was at least partially
beyond his control, then admit to a third employee just that difficulty
with the issue while never fully apologizing to the original employee?

Specifically, the issue of photography.

No, I'm not Ansel Adams. But, I can't make silk purses out of
sow's ears. And, I know enough about photography to know when I'm faced
with little more than a sow's ear to work with. And, if not a total
sow's ear, at least, no better than synthetic velour -- and an employer
who should know that in advance, from having been around a while.

That, then, gets to the issue of opinions.

Is it passive-aggressive, even, to not bother offering opinions,
or, a better word, ideas, in the first place, if you know they're going
to be ignored, rejected, or not listened to?

And, is it
really people pleasing to not speak up more, either? Might it rather be
an acceptance of reality, or how reality is perceived at the
lower end of the stick by someone who's not a stereotypical Type A
male?

Of course, from my point of view, these are offered up as largely rhetorical questions.

But, they reflect larger societal issues related to income
disparity, job outsourcing, and, some industries (creative-type ones)
becoming ever tighter with the dollar and expecting more for less.

Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Antonio Damasio, one of the leaders in the investigation of what makes humans conscious, certainly thinks that's what will prove out.

And, because of the number of connections each individual neuron
has, that could mean that consciousness for a computer or robot may be
quite some ways off, still.

Back to futurist dreamland for Ray Kurzweil, Michio Kaku and others, in that case.

Even if Damasio isn't totally on the right trail, I think he's
headed in the right direction. Now, what led to the precursor of
consciousness to "emerge" at some level of animal life? How much brain
complexity was needed? Is neuronal number per body weight, or neuronal
connections per body weight, a power law situation?

Saturday, February 04, 2012

I'm an avid nonfiction reader. So, especially at larger libraries, I just head to the new books display and grab what I want ...

While at the same time, knowing I can't read every book I want to.

That
has an analogy to Western monotheisms' view of a perpetual,
individual-soul afterlife. (Hinduism and some other religions besides
the Judeo-Islamo-Christian tradition may fall here, too, but I'm focused
on them.)

The analogy? Has roots in one Georg Cantor and the mathematics of infinity.

If you have any familiarity with this, you know there are different infinities of sets, such as

א-null, א-one and א-two. Well, picture your or my individual
infinite life in heaven as א-null. Well, if the “set” of א-null is multiplied
by itself, we get א-one, a different level of set-infinity. Arguably, even though
the number of people in the Western version of heaven, with no procreation,
will be finite, one could still say that all the works they will produce will
be something like א-one to an individual person’s א-null.

So, heaven would be a sort of “bounded infinity,” and,
aside from medieval Christian notions of the real greatness of heaven being to
bask in the glory of god, we would see our individual infinities as essentially
“bounded.” That, in turn, would be a sort of psychological pain.

Friday, February 03, 2012

Excellent overview of Buckley, and his particular flavor of conservativism, and how he was able to unite disparate wings of conservativism into one "movement."

Bogus has written for The Nation, among other things, but, from my POV, there's no liberal ax-grinding; Buckley is acknowledged for his successes, while still criticized for his flaws.

Besides the "political sociology" success of creating this modern movement, Bogus notes that Buckley himself was primarily a libertarian, but with social conservative leanings to, albeit of a religious nature. He was NOT, Bogus says, a Burkean, in his take on individualistic vs. collective strands in conservativism. Bogus says that Americans' "rugged individuality" probably has militated against a Burkean line of thought gaining too much steam in America. And, after Russell Kirk decided to pitch his tent under Buckley's Burkeans had no independent leader in the U.S. (And really still don't today.)

Buckley's biggest failing? That of Ron Paul today - race issues. I knew about mid-1950s National Review issues, which were bad enough to be called, if not racist, at least pandering to racists. But, as late as the late 1960s, Buckley was lamenting that too many blacks were in leadership positions in the fight against the Vietnam War, and claimed they were communist dupes, in part because they weren't smarter. THAT I did not know.

And, that was Buckley's second-biggest mistake - Vietnam. He never did admit he was wrong for backing that war to the bitter end. Bogus says that's because Buckley, beyond "evil empire" takes on monolithic communism, had no coherent foreign policy, nor did he attempt to make one.'

That, in turn reflects not a single mistake, but a larger failing. Bogus rightly calls Buckley not a deep thinker. (There are conservative deep thinkers, but, to riff on Bogus, they're not to be found at the main conservative opinion journals.)

Anyway, I don't want to give away too much about the book. Moderates, liberals, and even honest conservatives who don't worship at Buckley's altar will find plenty to like here.